news you won't find in the mainstream media

Why Do "Progressives" Like War?

Liberals are supposed to be antiwar, right? I went to college in the 1960s, when students nationwide were rising up in opposition to the Vietnam War. I was a Young Republican back then and supported the war through sheer ignorance and dislike of the sanctimoniousness of the protesters, some of whom were surely making their way to Canada to live in exile on daddy’s money while I was on a bus going to Fort Leonard Wood for basic combat training. I can’t even claim that I had some grudging respect for the antiwar crowd because I didn’t, but I did believe that at least some of them who were not being motivated by being personally afraid of getting hurt were actually sincere in their opposition to the awful things that were happening in Southeast Asia.As I look around now, however, I see something quite different. The lefties I knew in college are now part of the Establishment and generally speaking are retired limousine liberals. And they now call themselves progressives, of course, because it sounds more educated and sends a better message, implying as it does that troglodytic conservatives are anti-progress. But they also have done a flip on the issue of war and peace. In its most recent incarnation some of this might be attributed to a desperate desire to relate to the Hillary Clinton campaign with its bellicosity towards Russia, Syria and Iran, but I suspect that the inclination to identify enemies goes much deeper than that, back as far as the Bill Clinton Administration with its sanctions on Iraq and the Balkan adventure, which resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths and the creation of a terror-narco state in the heart of Europe. And more recently we have seen the Obama meddling in Libya, Yemen and Syria in so called humanitarian interventions which have turned out to be largely fraudulent. Yes, under the Obama Dems it was “responsibility to protect time” (r2p) and all the world trembled as the drones were let loose.Last Friday I started to read an op-ed in The Washington Post by David Ignatius that blew me away. It began “President Trump confronts complicated problems as the investigation widens into Russia’s attack on our political system.” It then proceeded to lay out the case for an “aggressive Russia” in the terms that have been repeated ad nauseam in the mainstream media. And it was, of course, lacking in any evidence, as if the opinions of coopted journalists and the highly politicized senior officials in the intelligence community should be regarded as sacrosanct. These are, not coincidentally, the same people who have reportedly recently been working together to undercut the White House by leaking and then reporting highly sensitive transcripts of phone calls with Russian officials.Ignatius is well plugged into the national security community and inclined to be hawkish but he is also a typical Post politically correct progressive on most issues. So here was your typical liberal asserting something in a dangerous fashion that has not been demonstrated and might be completely untrue. Russia is attacking “our political system!” And The Post is not alone in accepting that Russia is trying to subvert and ultimately overthrow our republic. Reporting from The New York Times and on television news makes the same assumption whenever they discuss Russia, leading to what some critics have described as mounting American ‘hysteria’ relating to anything coming out of Moscow.Read the entire article

Rogue Elephant Rising: The CIA as Kingslayer

With members of the CIA and NSA leaking materials on Michael Flynn’s communications with Russian officials, we are witnessing a slow boiling domestic coup that will transform American governance and the Executive Branch’s relationships with intelligence agencies. It remains to be seen whether these moves signal broader attacks on the Presidency by agencies long accustomed to taking out administrations threatening the Agency’s perceived interests.This moment tells us more about the CIA revolting against a particular administration than it does about Trump’s people engaging in unusually diabolical-illegal activities designed to undermine an outgoing administration. We know enough about Reagan’s pre-election dealings with Iran to know that the CIA and NSA knew about these transactions, yet these agencies were content to remain silent; apparently glad to see Carter ousted and welcoming a new era of unparalleled “peace time” military and intelligence spending. Similarly, American intelligence agencies knew of Nixon’s efforts to sabotage the Paris peace talks before the 1968 election, and the CIA did nothing to undermine a new president who was going to give the agency the war it wanted. The leaking of Flynn’s information tells us little new about how incoming administrations act, but it suggests something new about US intelligence agencies willingness to take out an administration not to their liking.To be clear: I see nothing wrong with the leaks themselves. I like intelligence leaks. I think they are generally good for democracy and reveal important truths about power. I am not worried about leaks, I am worried about the CIA and other intelligence agencies making a significant power grab that is not being critically considered. This is a move that no future president will soon forget, and that will make him or her think twice before crossing these agencies.The left’s widely shared disdain for Donald Trump makes the current rushing national wave of schadenfreude understandable, yet there are few on the left who appear worried about what this domestic CIA coup portends for American democracy. Because of the long history of liberals’ attractions to using the CIA, perhaps we should not be too surprised at this elation, but we need to cautiously think beyond this moment.Read the entire article

CIA Traitor Calls Trump Domestic Enemy

The Coup Against Trump and Why Russia ‘Must Be Destroyed’

The Rome of our time is Washington, Russia is Carthage, and today’s Cato the Elder is none other than US Senator John McCain, whose quest for conflict with Russia is unbounded.Indeed for Mr. McCain the belief that Russia must be destroyed has been elevated to the status of a self evident and received truth.Origins of the ‘Dodgy Dossier’It was McCain who passed the “dodgy dossier” on Trump to the FBI, after receiving it from former UK ambassador to Russia, Sir Andrew Wood. Contained within the dossier is information purporting to reveal how Trump has been compromised by Russian intelligence over various sexual encounters with prostitutes in a Moscow hotel room. Compounding the scandal, adding to the lurid nature of it, are reports of the existence of a second Russian dossier on the President-elect.The dossier’s originator has been revealed as former British MI6 intelligence officer Christopher Steele, who now runs a private intelligence company and has, according to reports, gone into hiding in the UK, supposedly fearing assassination by Russian agents.The fact that Mr. Steele hasn’t set foot in Russia for a number of years and reportedly, on behalf of Trump’s enemies within the Republican Party establishment, paid for the information contained in the 35-page dossier, recently released with the caveat that its contents cannot be verified, should have been more than enough to have it instantly dismissed as, well, fake news?Read the entire article

Is the Left Playing with Fire Again?

To those who lived through that era that tore us apart in the ’60s and ’70s, it is starting to look like “deja vu all over again.”And as Adlai Stevenson, Bobby Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey did then, Democrats today like Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi are pandering to the hell-raisers, hoping to ride their energy to victory.Democrats would do well to recall what happened the last time they rode the tiger of social revolution.As the riots began in Harlem in 1964 and Watts in 1965, liberals rushed to render moral sanction and to identify with the rioters.“In the great struggle to advance civil and human rights,” said Adlai at Colby College, “even a jail sentence is no longer a dishonor but a proud achievement. … Perhaps we are destined to see in this law-loving land people running for office … on their prison records.”Read the entire article

Paul Ryan Minion, Reince Priebus, Working Against Trump

Pentagon Spending: Up, Up, and Away!

Show me your budget and I’ll tell you what you value. Under the Trump administration, what is valued is spending on military weaponry and wars. The Pentagon is due to get a major boost under Trump, as reported by the Associated Press and FP: Foreign Policy:Money train. It’s looking like it might be Christmas in February for the U.S. defense industry. The Pentagon has delivered a $30 billion wish list to Congress that would fund more ships, planes, helicopters, drones, and missiles, the AP reports.And that might only be the beginning.President Trump has already ordered the Pentagon to draft a “supplemental” budget for 2017 that would include billions more for the US military on top of the $600 billion the Obama administration budgeted for…As FP’s Paul McLeary and Dan De Luce recently reported, there are proposals floating around for a defense budget as high as $640 billion for 2018, which would bust through congressionally-mandated spending caps that Democrats — and many Republicans — are happy to keep in place. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has been tasked with completing the supplemental request by March 1.Read the entire article

CHINA IS PREPARING A MAJOR OFFENSIVE AGAINST THE UNITED STATES - THIS IS NOT GOOD!

The FBI: The Silent Terror of the Fourth Reich

As countless documents make clear, the FBI has no qualms about using its extensive powers in order to blackmail politicians, spy on celebrities and high-ranking government officials, and intimidate and attempt to discredit dissidents of all stripes. For example, not only did the FBI follow Martin Luther King Jr. and bug his phones and hotel rooms, but agents also sent him anonymous letters urging him to commit suicide and pressured a Massachusetts college into dropping King as its commencement speaker.Just as the Gestapo carried out entrapment operations, the FBI has become a master in the art of entrapment.In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks the FBI has not only targeted vulnerable individuals but has also lured or blackmailed them into fake terror plots while actually equipping them with the organization, money, weapons and motivation to carry out the plots—entrapment—and then jailing or deporting them for their so-called terrorist plotting. This is what the FBI characterizes as “forward leaning—preventative—prosecutions.” In addition to creating certain crimes in order to then “solve” them, the FBI also gives certain informants permission to break the law, “including everything from buying and selling illegal drugs to bribing government officials and plotting robberies,” in exchange for their cooperation on other fronts. USA Today estimates that agents have authorized criminals to engage in as many as 15 crimes a day. Some of these informants are getting paid astronomical sums: one particularly unsavory fellow, later arrested for attempting to run over a police officer, was actually paid $85,000 for his help laying the trap for an entrapment scheme.When and if a true history of the FBI is ever written, it will not only track the rise of the American police state but it will also chart the decline of freedom in America, in much the same way that the empowerment of Germany’s secret police tracked with the rise of the Nazi regime.Read the entire article

WIKILEAKS PRAISES TRUMP FOR HONESTY ABOUT U.S. FOREIGN POLICY: Trump Admits U.S. Not Innocent

Trump or Putin? EU Loses Plot on Biggest Threat

Talk about "fortress mentality"! The European presidents and prime ministers were scheduled to deal with migration from North Africa as a threat to the bloc's stability.But instead, their summit was dominated by the issue of US President Donald Trump and the shared perception that the new occupant of the White House poses an urgent challenge to the EU."Prime ministers and presidents at Malta summit line up to scorn Trump's conduct, accusing him of lack of respect," reported the Guardian.French President Francois Hollande even said that if the EU did not unite to oppose Trump's populist nationalism, then the bloc was doomed to collapse.The irony of the European leaders' existential apprehensions about the new American president is laughable. For months, these same European politicians have been led by the nose by Western state propaganda alleging it was Russian President Vladimir Putin who is the top threat to EU stability.European news media – like their US counterparts – have pushed sensationalist claims that the Kremlin is out to subvert EU democracies, undermine "European values", promote Eurosceptic political parties and smash the union.Read the entire article

Israel is using Wikileaks to derail French election.

White House: Iran ‘On Notice,’ US Won’t Rule Out Attack

White House officials are ratcheting up the rhetoric over Iran’s recent ballistic missile test, accusing it of being “highly provocative” and threatening non-specific action, which might include military force, against Iran over the incident.National Security Adviser Michael Flynn announced that the Trump Administration is “putting Iran on notice” over the test, saying that the test threatens stability across the region and “places American lives at risk.” Other officials said a lot of options were under consideration.In practice very little happened to provoke this reaction. Iran’s single test of a medium-range ballistic missile almost certain did not violate the P5+1 nuclear deal’s restriction on testing nuclear-capable missiles, and Iran has insisted the design was purely defensive, with no consideration of carrying a nuclear payload.Indeed, some analysts have noted the ballistic missile ban is largely irrelevant at this point, with Iran having only a small civilian nuclear program left. The Obama Administration had similarly gotten riled by such conventional tests in the past couple of years, but wasn’t being nearly so aggressive as today’s comments.Read the entire article